If you work in an office you’re not much of a man, or at least your career isn’t very manly.
Even if you’ve no less than five days’ worth of stubble on your face at all times, bath in Acqua Di Parma, and swill your mouth with single malt every morning, office work just isn’t man’s work..
That is unless you happen to work as an intelligence analyst, in which case you’ll be considered quite manly, but even then you’ll be nowhere near as manly as a marine engineer, which is the most manly job there is. Apparently.
Confused? Read on…
The ‘manly’ job index
A survey commissioned by Stormline, makers of ‘foul weather gear’ – we’re not just talking outdoor clothing here, or even clothing for bad weather, actual foul weather, the worst there is – has found marine engineer to be the most manly job in Britain. And there’s probably no more manly worker than a marine engineer plying his trade in some foul weather gear.
The poll of over 1,000 UK adults found that most people consider low-tech and physically intensive jobs to be the most masculine.
Top of the shop were marine engineers – with its inherent dangers, bad weather conditions and solitude leading 92% of respondents to rate it either “very manly” or “extremely manly”.
And engineers, marine or otherwise, were considered to have the manliest of jobs with 88% agreeing engineering is “very manly” or “extremely manly”.
The survey suggests that most people still associate male work with hard, manual labour, and some problem solving, and half of the top ten jobs were based outdoors.
Manly or not, I’d sooner be stuck in an office than in the ‘great’ outdoors in the height of winter.
The 10 manliest jobs
Engineer
Infantry soldier
Blacksmith
Motor mechanic
Chef
Butcher
Private security contractor (eg door supervisor)
Arboriculturist (tree surgeon, lumberjack)
Surgeon
Intelligence analyist
The 10 manliest industries
Marine and fishing
Military and defence
Conservation
Construction
Intelligence
Security
Aviation
Agriculture
Brewing
Medicine
What makes a job manly?
So what exactly makes a job manly? Over a third (34%) of those surveyed suggested problem solving was the most manly quality of a job, with harsh working conditions and specialist uniforms following behind. The results on this section of the poll broke down like this:
34% – Problem solving
22% – Harsh working conditions
21% – Specialist uniforms or workwear
14% – High danger levels
9% – High salary
It all means absolutely nothing, of course, and is just a bit of fun – any complaints that it’s in any way sexist would probably be met with a gruff “man up” (whatever that means) – but it did reveal one relatively positive statistic, and that’s fewer than than 1 in 10 people measured a job’s manliness by salary.
It’s good to know we’re not all judged on earning potential at least.
